Page:Who is God in China.djvu/29

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offence to theirs:—thus gain their confidence, and then teach them what we know and believe, in order to make them one with us in the knowledge of Christ. They, too, have a religion as well as we; but their religion is that of Cicero (de Nat. D. ii. 28), "a relegendo,"—"vain repetitions"; as for instance (Laws of Manu, ch. ii. 79, 82,)—

"Sahasrakritwastwabhyasya vahir etat trikam, dwija:, ।
Mahato, ऽ pyenaso masat, twachevahir vimuchyate." ॥

"The twice-born Brāhman, who shall have repeated these three ('Om,' the 'vyahritis,' and the 'gayatri'), a thousand times, apart from men, shall, in a month, be released from a great offence, as a serpent is from his slough."—Let us, then, show them, with kindness, that our religion consists in changing only two letters in theirs, in order to make it, as Lactantius (lib. iv. 28) says, "a religando,"—the religion that will bind their hearts—"arctis relligionum nodis," (Lucr. i. 931,) with ours in the fear of God.

אבבא תטרא מלי אבי דרא קופבכא׃

"Bring back the wandering sheep to the fold with kind words: when once they are in, then give them the lesson," says the Jewish adage, quoted by Rabbi S. Jarchi, in his Com. on Eccles. iii. 7.

One or two examples will suffice to illustrate what we mean.

If, for instance, we attempt to bring a Buddhist